Hamas: No disarmament until Palestinian state established with an army

Senior Hamas envoy says the terror group will not consider disarming until a Palestinian state is established with a military capable of fighting Israel.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Hamas has ruled out disarming in the foreseeable future, a senior member of the terror group said Tuesday, adding that disarmament can only come after the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with a military capable of confronting Israel.

Speaking with the Yemeni television channel al-Masirah, Hamas spokesman and former envoy to Lebanon and Iran Osama Hamdan said the organization will never agree to surrender its weapons to any foreign entity.

Disarmament, he said, could only come in the context of a broad national rapprochement between Palestinian factions after a fully sovereign Palestinian state is established and a Palestinian army formed.

“The resistance [Hamas] rejects the arrival of foreign forces to disarm us [and take away] the weapons that the occupation failed to take from us,” said Hamdan.

“The idea of surrendering weapons is an idea that the resistance does not accept.”

Hamdan said that Hamas would not cooperate with the second phase of the Gaza peace deal unless the United States provides guarantees ensuring that Israel does not resume the war.

“In the second phase of the Gaza agreement, the guarantees must be clearer and the commitments need to be more detailed,” Hamdan continued. “The Zionist enemy does not abide by the agreement, and even the international agreements that it concludes are subject to blatant violations.”

The terror spokesman said that Hamas will not even hold talks on disarmament under the formula presented by the Trump administration.

“It is not possible to deliberate on this issue. These weapons are the weapons of the resistance. These weapons exist because of the occupation. So long as the occupation exists, so will these weapons.”

The only formula for disarmament which Hamas will consider, Hamdan said, would be to hand over the group’s weapons to a future Palestinian military.

“When the occupation ends and a Palestinian state is established, sovereign and independent and able to defend itself and its land – and that capability means having a real national army which defends us and fights – then it would be natural for us to be [part] of that army.”